A Study of strategies used by six Persian translations in translating Quranic proper nouns (A Case Study: Surah Al-Baqarah)

Proper nouns are one of the most important cultural categories in any language. This importance is felt more in some texts, such as the Holy Quran because of its features, especially when such texts are translated into another language. Previous studies in the field of translation of proper nouns have been mainly related to the reflection of such nouns in fiction and novels, and not much attention has been paid to the reflection of proper names in Quran translations, particularly Persian translations. In the present study, which has been done by descriptive-analytical method, we have tried to study the reflection of Quranic proper nouns (with the focus on Surah al-Baqarah) in six Persian translations: Translation of Tafsir al-Tabari, the 10th century A.H. Translation, Elahi Qomshei, Ansari, Rezaei Esfahani and Safavi, and to show what strategies these translations have used in translating Quranic proper nouns. In this regard, we have placed proper nouns under seven groups, and identified fourteen strategies, which some of them are adapted from previous studies in the field of translating proper nouns, and some of them are a combination of two independent strategies. The research results show that the three main strategies of the six translations in dealing with proper nouns are: "Replacement by a noun from the target language", "Transference (without any change or with a slight change)" and "translation".